The types of industry are divided into two categories: light industry and heavy industry.
Light industry mainly refers to the industrial sector that provides consumer goods, including: ① agricultural products as raw materials. Such as cotton, wool, hemp, silk textile and sewing, leather and its products, pulp and paper, food manufacturing and other industries; ② non-agricultural products as raw materials. Such as daily-use metals, daily-use chemicals, daily-use glass, daily-use ceramics, chemical fibers and their fabrics, matches, household wood products and other industries. Most of the products of light industry is the production of consumer goods, part of the raw materials and semi-finished products used in production, such as chemical fibers, industrial fabrics, paper, salt and so on.
Supplementary: Industry A sector of material production engaged in the extraction of natural resources and the processing and reprocessing of extractive and agricultural products. Specifically, it includes: (1) the exploitation of natural resources, such as mining, salt tanning, forest logging, etc. (but excluding animal and bird hunting and aquatic fishing); (2) the processing and re-processing of agricultural and sideline products, such as grain and oil processing, food processing, ginning, reeling, textile and tannery, etc.; (3) the processing and re-processing of extractive products, such as iron and steel making, chemical production, petroleum processing, machine making, wood processing, etc., as well as production and supply of electricity, water and gas, etc.; (4) repair and renovation of industrial products, such as the repair of machinery and equipment, and the repair of means of transportation (including small sleeping cars).
Light industry: refers to industries that mainly provide consumer goods and make hand tools. According to the different raw materials used, it can be divided into two categories: (1) light industry with agricultural products as raw materials, refers to the light industry that directly or indirectly uses agricultural products as basic raw materials. It mainly includes food manufacturing, beverage manufacturing, tobacco processing, textile, sewing, leather and fur production, paper making and printing industries; (2) light industry using non-agricultural products as raw materials, refers to light industry using industrial products as raw materials. It mainly includes such industries as cultural, educational and sporting goods, chemical and drug manufacturing, synthetic fiber manufacturing, daily-use chemical products, daily-use glass products, daily-use metal products, hand tool manufacturing, medical equipment manufacturing, and machinery manufacturing for culture and office use.
Heavy industry: refers to all sectors of the national economy to provide the material and technological basis of the main means of production industry. According to the nature of its production and product use, can be divided into the following three categories: (1) extraction (logging) industry, refers to the extraction of natural resources, including oil mining, coal mining, metal mining, non-metallic mining and timber harvesting and other industries; (2) raw materials industry, refers to the various sectors of the national economy to provide the basic materials, power and fuel industry. It includes industries such as metal smelting and processing, coking and coke, chemistry, chemical raw materials, cement, man-made boards, and electric power, petroleum and coal processing; (3) Processing industry, which refers to industries that reprocess and manufacture industrial raw materials. Including machinery and equipment manufacturing industry to equip various sectors of the national economy, metal structures, cement products and other industries, as well as for agriculture to provide the means of production such as fertilizers, pesticides and other industries.
Based on the above principles of division, the repair industry to heavy industrial products for the repair of the object of operation is classified as heavy industry, and vice versa for light industry.
Heavy industry refers to the industrial system based on energy and raw materials industry, high-grade durable consumer goods, equipment manufacturing, electronics and electrical machinery industry, chemical industry as the main body. Light industry: refers to the main provision of consumer goods and the production of hand tools industry, according to its use of different raw materials, can be divided into two categories: (1) agricultural products as raw materials for light industry, refers to the direct or indirect agricultural products as the basic raw materials for light industry. (2) non-agricultural products as raw materials for light industry, refers to industrial products as raw materials for light industry.
In the past industrial economics, industries were often divided into light and heavy industries based on the relative weight of products per unit volume. The industrial sector with a large weight per unit volume of product is heavy industry, and the light weight belongs to light industry. The industrial sectors belonging to heavy industry include iron and steel industry, non-ferrous metallurgy industry, metal materials industry and machinery industry. Due to the development of modern industry, the chemical industry in a very prominent position, therefore, in the industrial structure of the industrial classification, often the chemical industry independently, with the light and heavy industry side by side. In this way, the industrial structure consists of light industry, heavy industry and chemical industry three major components. Often people put the heavy industry and chemical industry together, collectively known as the heavy chemical industry, as opposed to light industry.
Another criterion for the division of light and heavy industry is to call the sector that provides the means of production heavy industry and the sector that produces the means of consumption light industry. There is a difference between these two principles of division.
The division of light and heavy industries by the National Bureau of Statistics is close to the latter criterion, and the definition of heavy industry in the China Statistical Yearbook is: the industry that provides the main means of production for the material and technical basis of all sectors of the national economy. Light industry is: industries that mainly provide consumer goods and make hand tools. In research, as mentioned above, heavy industry and chemical industry are often referred to together as heavy chemical industry.